


Choices

by Ellimac



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellimac/pseuds/Ellimac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after Braxiatel's self-imposed exile from Gallifrey, Leela comes to hear his final story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

Leela didn't know why she had been summoned here, nor where she was expected to go now that she had arrived. The place was empty. Of people, at least; there were many sculptures, paintings, and other such forms of art in each hall she turned down. She held her knife out in front of her in readiness, just in case someone might leap out from around a corner.

But no one did, and presently she found herself in front of a door. It didn't look like much of a door, not compared to the ones she'd seen on Gallifrey; those were all gray, metal, imposing. This was a plain wooden door, or it appeared to be, until she took a closer look and noticed a lock like those on the doors of Gallifrey. She inspected the lock for several seconds before trying the door.

It swung open easily at her touch. She stepped into the room, cautious, quiet, but as soon as she saw who was in it, she straightened up. "Braxiatel?"

"Leela." Braxiatel sat behind a desk. He looked as though he had been waiting for her. She had not seen him in quite some time, but even so, she thought he looked heavier now, quieter, sadder. In the next moment, though, she was almost sure she had imagined it. "I'm so glad you could come."

"What is this about, Braxiatel? Why have you had me brought here?"

Braxiatel stood, placing his hands on his desk. "I have a story to tell," he said quietly. "I would like to tell it to you and you alone. It isn’t a secret. You may tell anyone you like once I have told you. But I need you to stay and listen."

"I do not understand," Leela said. "If it is not a secret, why all this effort to make sure no one is listening?"

"Because I need you to hear it first," Braxiatel said. "And it must be you, Leela, and you alone. I trust you to do what is required, once the telling is done."

"What is required? You expect there to be a task to accomplish! A moment ago you were only asking that I hear your story."

Braxiatel held up a hand. "Leela, I assure you, the task is no great ordeal. You may not even need my instruction. All I ask is that you listen. Can you do that?"

Leela considered this. "I can listen," she conceded. "I shall hear your tale."

Braxiatel closed his eyes, and the heavy look returned. "I am an immensely selfish man, Leela."

"Do not be silly."

"I am. I cannot deny it. No one can deny it. There was a way... there was another way, and I did not take it. Perhaps I could have -- perhaps Gallifrey--" He broke off and shook his head. "Let me start from the beginning."

"I am not stopping you," Leela said.

Braxiatel shook his head. "No. You are not." He gave her a speculative glance and continued, "Tell me, Leela, do you know why I exiled myself?"

"Because you were breaking the laws of time," Leela said. "Narvin made sure everyone knew after you left. You were speaking with your past and future selves, were you not?"

"I was," Braxiatel said. "I was giving myself details of the future, details I should never have known. I was allowing myself to plan in advance, and even giving myself the necessary steps. I called my future self to intervene, sometimes. So long ago, and yet not so long. The calling happened a long time past. The self my younger self called... I was him only yesterday. I saw Romana again. In the past, of course. She was so young then, so naïve, so unsuspecting of things to come...

"But that is not the point. I digress. No, the point is that, not so long ago, or perhaps a very long time ago, I received a message from a future self -- my self, this self, in point of fact -- outlining what was shortly to happen if I could not find a way to prevent it.

"He – I -- gave me options. What do you know of Pandora?"

"Pandora is... a legend?" Leela guessed.

"She is that. But the Pandora I mean was a Time Lord, a very old one, ancient. She was a perpetrator of great crimes. Gallifrey's first, and last, Imperiatrix. She ruled Gallifrey with an iron fist. That is, until she was betrayed by her alien bodyguard and dispersed.

"Dispersal is our harshest punishment. We do not use it, not these days. Romana... Romana abolished it, in her day. To be dispersed is to be erased from time entirely. That should have been that.

"But it was not. The Matrix does not forget. Pandora was kept alive in a dark partition, a place that should never have been allowed to continue existing, regardless of any sort of wish to preserve our history. And this, coming from me." Braxiatel gave a wry smile. "I'm sure you've seen my collection. I preserve histories. It's what I do."

"But what is the point of this story?" Leela said. "Is it a warning? Is Pandora going to break free?"

To this, Braxiatel looked more shadowed, more sad, than ever, and he sank back down slowly into his chair. "No. There is no danger of Pandora, not now. I made sure of that."

"How?"

"I'm getting to that. Please, don't interrupt."

Leela crossed her arms and waited for him to continue. After rubbing his temples, still not looking at her, he did.

"So Pandora was alive in the Matrix. She was a planner, a schemer, and she was clever. She found Romana when she was very young, when she was still at the Academy. She planted herself in Romana's mind.

"Romana, of course, knew to tell someone. She told me about it, and I called on myself to erase her memories. She could not remember what had transpired. It was too dangerous. She could not even remember me.

"Thus far, Pandora had proved no immediate threat. But I knew, I had seen her alluded to by my future selves, I knew it was not to last. And I was right. Romana... she knew better, of course, but her enemies worked against her. I..." Braxiatel put his head in his hands.

"You miss her," Leela said in a low voice.

Braxiatel said nothing. His shoulders were not shaking, and his breathing, as far as Leela could hear it, seemed even enough, but she was sure he was crying, or trying not to cry. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He shook her off.

"Please, Leela," he said, without removing his hands. "It is not that I don't appreciate your comfort. It's just that I don't think you would offer it, if you knew."

"If I knew what?"

"The full story." Braxiatel straightened up again, and for the first time, Leela noticed the bags under his eyes. She hadn’t seen them before – he hadn’t looked so directly at her since she came in. Braxiatel was sad. Perhaps even miserable. But for that, Leela could not blame him. She waited, and after several moments he took a deep breath and continued, staring at a point on the wall somewhere above Leela's head.

"Her enemies, as I said, worked against her," he said. "She was clever, of course. Romana was always clever. Perhaps too clever for her own good.

"Here is where I think you may begin to hate me, Leela, and I would well deserve it," Braxiatel said heavily. "Because I had a choice, you see. There were possibilities. If I had waited, I would have had the opportunity to stop it myself. It would have been a long, difficult process... people would have died. Perhaps Gallifrey would have gone with them. On the other hand, perhaps it wouldn't. It was all down to decisions I made, and others.

"But there was another option. An option that would lead to less travail, less hardship, for nearly everyone involved. Including myself, to some degree. I cannot say that it has not been without difficulties... but of a different kind than they may have been, had I chosen a different path.

"You see... Pandora already existed partially within Romana's mind. Not much of Pandora, but enough to use her, if she gained more power, which she would. Enough to bend Romana, perhaps the whole of Gallifrey, to her will. It was a simple enough matter to trick Pandora into Romana's mind in her entirety."

Here he stopped, and leaned over his desk, his hands spread wide on it. He seemed to be speaking to the desk, rather than Leela, which was just as well, as she had already made the connection before he spoke his next words, and was shaking with fury.

"I killed Romana," he said. "I suppose it can be said I at least offered her the dignity of doing it with my own two hands, rather than having it done for me. It was... perhaps... the most difficult thing I have ever done. But it was done."

"You are right," Leela said, holding the handle of her knife so hard her knuckles went white. "You are a selfish man."

"I had my reasons. Gallifrey has not fallen. I am in exile, Romana is dead, but Gallifrey has not fallen. This... I think... is the only outcome one could ask for."

"What? That Romana is dead?" Leela practically snarled the words. "And by your own hand? You expect me to be pleased?"

"No. Not in the slightest." He lifted his head to look at her again. "I do not even attempt to soften the blow. There are many things that might. Andred, for example. There is a great possibility he would have died, had I taken a different path. But I do not try to justify myself. I respect you too much for that."

Leela found herself on her feet. "You killed Romana and you respect _me_ too much -- I swore revenge for her, Braxiatel. I swore that I would kill her killer if I had to chase him until my heart gave out. But now I find he has summoned me to his -- to his _castle_ , his palace of luxuries, to tell me the tale of what he has done! Are you proud, Braxiatel? Do you take pride in what you did?"

"None," Braxiatel said. "None at all. You may not believe me, but it was... terribly painful. It has been terribly painful these past years. I may have saved Gallifrey, that I do not know, but I wonder to this day if I made the wrong decision."

"You did!"

"I know, Leela." He stood and spread his arms. "And now we come to the point. The task I would ask you to carry out."

"I will do nothing for you, murderer! Traitor!"

"But you will. What you want is what we both want."

There was a long silence. Leela stood, poised to attack, and Braxiatel stood behind his desk with his head bowed, arms spread, as if waiting for the blow.

"What do you mean?" spat Leela.

"Both hearts," Braxiatel said. "Otherwise I will only regenerate."

Leela readied her knife again. "Then you shall breathe your last, Time Lord."

Minutes later, she was out of the office. The door swung shut behind her, hiding the body within. Her knife dripped with blood, and she wiped it, absently, on her skirt.

She had aimed to go immediately back to where the TARDIS that had transported her here waited for her. But after several steps in that direction, she stumbled. She put away her knife, carefully, and found her way to the nearest wall, where she curled up as small as she could make herself and began to sob. She did not stop for a long, long time.

 


End file.
